Passover

There should never be starch in napkins, dresses, shirts, for starch is Chometz, which is leaven. The house must be thoroughly cleansed of Chometz. The night after the feast a father or a grandfather may tell the little ones of the house to say only half their prayers, for that night "God is nigh to his people." Thus may begin the holy feast of the Passover, symbolic of liberty, memorial to the exodus, and to the night when the Lord's angel slew the Egyptians' first-born but passed over and left unbereft the homes of the Israelites.

Throughout the world last week all Jews celebrated the last day of the Passover feast.* But in the three great centres of Jewry -historic Jerusalem, young Tel Aviv and New York City -the celebrations differed vastly.

In Jerusalem is the holiest place in the world of Jewry: the Wailing Wall, sole remnant, it is said, of the silently-built temple of Solomon. Here, too, for Christians to worship, is the empty tomb of Christ, and for Mohammedan Arabs, the Coffin of Mohammed, studded with 17 gold nails.

Even the Arabs, who in Palestine out-number Jews by seven to one, were content last week to let Jews worship in peace. And to crown their worship came the formal dedication of a gift to Palestine from U. S. Jewish Philanthropist Nathan Straus.

The gift, a $250,000 clinic, given to Hadassah, international women's Zionist organization, is destined to serve all creeds and colors. Jerusalem's swart Arab Mayor Nashashibi spoke a few words in troubled English, thanked Donor Straus "for often having given to all people in Palestine help and comfort . . . thus creating friendship among Jerusalem's citizens." Great Britain's High Commissioner to Palestine, Sir John Robert Chancellor, spoke too, praised the Zionist movement which is in high favor in Great Britain.

Dedicating the clinic on the feast of the Passover was typical of Straus donations. Philanthropist Straus likes to commemorate festivals by gifts. On his 80th birthday last year (Jan. 31) he sent $100,000 to Jerusalem's Zionist leaders. His name is inevitably associated with milk. He has established milk stations throughout the U. S., conducted pasteurization campaigns in the U. S., Palestine, Great Britain, France.

Tel Aviv, last week, celebrated not only the Passover but also its own 20th birthday. First city of the Zionists, founded on the sand dunes outside of Jaffa, Tel Aviv now resembles a small California town. Two-storied stucco houses line its shrubbed avenues. It has its own theatre, its opera house, about 50 schools. Its population verges on 50,000. Nothing but Hebrew is spoken in Tel Aviv.

On billboards all posters are printed in the Hebrew alphabet.

The climax of Tel Aviv's celebration was a parade of the city's native-born children. The first manchild, now 20, proudly presented a bouquet to the city's first and only Mayor, Meyer Diezengoff. Great Britain was represented by Maj. J. E. F. Campbell, District Commissioner of Southern Palestine, who made his speech in fluent Hebrew.

In New York City homes where live nearly half the U. S. Jews, unleavened bread (now largely made commercially) was eaten and the ancient ceremonies were observed in huge, modern temples. Looming in the minds of good Jews was the distracting thought that William Henry Cardinal O'Connell, dean of U. S. cardinals, had criticized and darkly accused today's foremost Jew, Dr. Albert Einstein.

Said His Eminence: "What does all this worked-up enthusiasm about Einstein mean? It evidently is worked-up enthusiasm because I have never yet met a man who understands in the least what Einstein is driving at and ... I very seriously doubt that Einstein himself really knows what he is driving at. ... In a word, the outcome of this doubt and befogged speculation about time and space is a cloak beneath which hides the ghastly apparition of atheism."

Last fortnight Dr. Einstein indirectly answered the Cardinal, declared his religion in a cable to Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein of the Institutional Synagogue, Manhattan. Rabbi Goldstein, perturbed by the Cardinal's words, had questioned Dr. Einstein. The latter replied: "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."

Jews were not altogether comforted by the Einstein reply. Some recalled that "with the judgment of the angels and the sentence of the saints" Spinoza had been excommunicated by the Jewish Orthodox Church. The Holy Roman Catholic Church, too, solemnly and officially condemned as heresy his writings. In the Bronx, Rabbi Jacob Katz of the Montefiore Congregation, thundered: "Cardinal O'Connell would have done well had he not attacked the Einstein theory. Einstein would have done better had he not proclaimed his nonbelief in a God who is concerned with fates and actions of individuals. . . . Both have handed down dicta outside their jurisdiction. . . ."

Less bitter Rabbis pointed out that although Spinoza had once been called "this famous atheist," he had also been called the "God-intoxicated man," that time has now granted reverence to his name, that to believe in his philosophy might not mean to deny the God of Israel. Born in the early 17th Century, Benedict d'Espinoza soon sundered himself from Jewry by advancing a mechanistic conception of life, starting the first scientific criticism of the Bible.

Another distraction from Passover thoughts in Manhattan, last week, was the production by Morris Gest, a Jew, of the Freiburg Passion Play (see p. 18). Editorialized the irate American Hebrew: "MORRIS GEST PLAYS JUDAS AT THE HIPPODROME. . . . Despite protests by Jews and non-Jews . . . Morris Gest carried through his program . . . the story of the Crucifixion which has caused more Jewish agony, persecution and oppression. . . . Were we a devout Christian [and had we seen the Gest production] we could never again look upon a Jew with kindliness and respect; the commandment. 'Love thy neighbor,' would definitely exclude Jews. . . . When two Jews [Morris Gest, David Belasco] indulge in such an obvious commercialization of the Gospel story . . . we must characterize the producers . . . as highly reprehensible from the Christian attitude, and, from the Jewish, as nothing else than contemptible."

* The Biblical Passover is seven days. In Biblical times, however, messengers went to notify the people of the impending holiday, sometimes arrived late. An eighth day was therefore allotted to insure a full holiday. Today Orthodox Jews celebrate eight days, Reformed Jews seven.